Some friends invited me to join them for dinner at their friend Debbie’s house in a little town in Maine. I was the last to arrive and everyone was seated around the table eating little appetizers she had set out. There were olives, crackers, cheese spreads and all sorts of nuts. Along with the appetizers, Debbie had made us an entire gluten free dinner of salad, chicken, and sausages, with apple crisp for dessert.
After dinner she took us out into the woods and showed us a home that her friends were constructing. It was a huge three story cement dome building that would be underground once it was all done. They had dug out the side of a hill and built it there, and when it was finished they were going to rebury it. The dome was bigger than most houses I had seen. We were able to go inside it, and we all decided that this is where we would come in case of an apocalypse. Back at the house we all played board games until it got late.
We still wanted to head to People’s Perch that night. People’s Perch is land in East Baldwin Maine with an old, large water tower on it. A man named Ian bought it earlier in the year. He and his partner Montana have a vision of turning it into a unique and welcoming space that inspires creativity and curiosity for all. When I first arrived there were seven people staying on the land in a tiny home, a bus and tents. Markie and Nolan, two of the people staying there, had invited me to come along for a bit. Since it was already late when I got there, they let me stay in a large empty tent that was already up. I got my sleeping stuff and my pup Maggie and I settled in for the night.
The next morning when I woke up Ian was making pancakes for breakfast over the fire. He was cooking on a grill contraption they had put together. Three birch branches had been tied in a teepee shape to sit like a tripod, from which a metal wire attached to a grate dangled over the fire. They even had set it up so the grate could be raise and lowered. The wire had a circle at the end that was looped around a nail, and there were two other nails you could move it to in order to change the height, and therefore the cooking temperature.
I jumped in to help cook breakfast and Rabbi, another man staying there, made an egg stir fry, and sausages. I ate to my heart's content. I helped in the garden a bit after breakfast, mostly picking a fruit called ground cherries, which there was an abundance of. They are a plant related to tomatoes, but are the size of cherries. They are part of the nightshade family, and all parts of the plant are toxic to humans and pets, except for the ripe fruit, which falls to the ground. You have to pop them out of a husk to eat them. That night Nolan, Markie and Rabbi were going on a bike trip to dig up some horseradish that a woman had grown and no longer wanted. It was about a 16 mile trip there and back. To my delight they had a tandem bike. Riding a tandem bike was on my bucket list, and luckily for me, Nolan agreed to ride it with me. We attached a little trailer for carrying the horseradish back. Nolan took the front, I took the back, and I absolutely loved it. It was even better than I had expected. I didn’t have to pay attention to where I was going because I couldn’t steer even if I had wanted to. I just peddled along looking at all the scenery.
Once we got to the woman’s house we started digging up the horseradish. The root is the part that you eat, so we had to dig pretty deep, but the roots were large so we were able to get a lot of it. Rabbi wanted us all to stop and get a drink with him for his last night in town, but none of us had our ID’s with us. Instead we went to a gas station and got some drinks. We went to a little park in the woods and had our goodbye celebration.
Once back at the house at The People’s Perch, Markie, Nolan, and I started making a horseradish sauce. Nolan scrubbed the horse radish, I chopped it up into little pieces, and Markie used a food processor to make it into the consistency needed for the sauce. She added vinegar and a bit of salt to it and jarred it up. We got about half way done when my eyes started to burn. I looked up at Nolan and tears were running down his face. Apparently he was getting it worse than I was. We tried to work through the burning, but eventually decided we had enough and called it quits. Ian came in, and for fun gave the freshly processed horse radish a good sniff. The small was so strong that he literally fell to the ground. After that a few others of us had to try smelling it too. I was hesitant, but decided I would anyway. The smell burned my nose so badly, I would not recommend trying it if you ever get a chance. The next day Nolan, Markie and Maria were heading to a job they had found on a cannabis farm. They would be staying there for a few days trimming the cannabis. I was graciously invited to come along and accepted. The three of them loaded into Markie’s bus and I followed behind in my car. The farm where we were staying was gorgeous. It belonged to a sweet couple with three adorable children. We stayed there trimming for three days, but also had a lot of downtime with time to play. We were invited into the house to eat dinner with the family each night. We also got to explore their beautiful land and gardens with permission to eat whatever fruits and vegetables we stumbled upon. That week we ate so many grapes and autumn olives, another fruit I had never tasted before. Autumn olives are pea-sized, speckled red, sweet-tart berry, with a single small, crunchy seed in the center.
We didn’t make a lot of money with that job. When it came to the trimming, we were all inexperienced which made us very slow, and we were paid by the pound. But it was well worth it because we felt rich from the experience with the family and the land.
We left the farm on a Friday afternoon with plans to go to Portland, Maine. Portland has what they call First Fridays. There is an art museum with free admission for this event, and multiple art vendors selling all sorts of paintings, jewelry and other unique treasures line the street. We parked the vehicles and started walking towards all the excitement. As we walked, we ran into a man with a drum attached to his chest like you would see in a marching band. Nolan asked if he should drop a beat, and started making a tune. The drummer started drumming, and we all danced down the street as he played, creating our own little parade. We bopped along until he came to his other marching band friends. When the band started playing, we danced along to the music, and when they started marching down the road while playing, we followed behind, still dancing.
We decided we should go into the Portland Museum of Art before they closed. I walked around looking at all the different paintings and sculptures. The sculptures are always my favorite things. I enjoy art museums, but I can’t spend too much time in them; everything is too still. I want to touch everything but am not allowed to, which makes me a little antsy. Sometimes I gently touch a few things while nobody’s looking; I can’t always help myself. After the art museum we walked down the road looking at the random street art. I loved all the different bracelets and crystals I saw. We listened to some different bands that were playing. One of them was made up of all different kinds of drums. At the end of the night we all retreated to the bus. Since it was late, we decided to stay the night in Portland instead of driving back. Markie invited us all to sleep on the bus. Maggie and I got to share a cushioned bench that was just long enough for me to stretch out on. Maria slept on the floor, while Markie and Nolan slept in the back. All the side windows had curtains, but the big front one did not, so Nolan took a blanket and used it to cover the large window. It was such a fun little sleepover on a side street in Portland.
The next morning was Portland's Farmers Market. Markie, who is an herbalist, thought she might want to set up a booth selling different tinctures she makes. We all went down together to check it out. There were so many different booths with every vegetable you could imagine. At the end, a bunch of artists had also set up booths. Markie pulled up her bus and set up a table with her tinctures on it. We all sat outside the bus next to the table, playing different instruments to attract people. I played the tambourine, Nolan played the banjo, and Maria played the ukulele while Markie talked to customers. At one point our friend Ian showed up on his bike, seemingly out of nowhere, and started juggling four oranges that he randomly had on him. We put on quite the show. But all shows must end sometime, and that afternoon I was off to my next adventure.
If you would like to check out the website for people’s perch I attached the link below.
https://peoplesperch.org
Comments